Of Agency and Power

Yesterday, a veritable army of buffoonish federal thugs were ordered to descend on an American city looking for people to kidnap—the kind of thing that used to only happen in the fever dream of men who missed child support payments to pay for their 347th gun. One of these federal goons, either out of fear or rage, shot a driver in the face. It is unclear how he thought a bullet was going to stop a car, but the extremely foreseeable effect was the women’s controlled foot on the gas became a dead weight on the accelerator, and her vehicle was transformed into an uncontrolled 2 ton projectile. I, as a dyed in the wool coward, would have simply run out of the way.

Luckily for Dumbshit McBangbang, the car quickly slammed into a parked car and jostled her body off the accelerator, so his death toll remained at one (1) for the day. But his careless violence could have easily resulted in much more death. The car could have slammed into traffic, or one of the many bystanders, or his fellow members of the dipshit patrol. He displayed a level of, at best, incompetence that put an entire neighborhood of Americans in danger and would deeply embarrass an agency and a government that cared about doing a good job or the well-being of citizens.

But the killer’s over the top dangerous stupidity is not part of the conversation beyond whether there is anyway he maybe felt a bit scared and is therefore freed from any obligation to protect himself and others. Instead, it is the dead mother whose every action is being picked apart. Was she there on purpose? Was her tone, like, super mean? Did she die her hair and write pronouns on the internet? Even those on the side of good end up conversing on these terms, pointing out the obvious that these actions are mostly virtuous and never an excuse for slaughter.

The g-man with the gun had power, but it is only the woman in the car who had agency.

Ideally, agency would scale with power. The more your actions can impact other people, the more you must be held responsible for those actions. Spiderman nailed this one. But for some reason, we seem to have made the opposite choice in our body politic. Trumpists control all three branches of government, but every Trump actions is met with a chorus of “why didn’t the democrats stop them???” as if the Trumpetariat is a force of nature and not a bunch of terrible people deciding to do terrible things. The Trumpists also have a robust media apparatus which agrees with the left and mainstream media on exactly one principle which is that only the anti-Trump coalition has agency.

These odd beliefs about agency are one of the most insidious culture-wide biases and an integral part of how we got here. People voted yes/no on Harris and if you don’t like Harris, let nature take it’s course! I think the events of the past year have clearly underlined that this bullshit is not sustainable.

I think part of the issue is that the anti-Trumpist coalition is full of people like me, who like having agency (I realize the irony in this statement). One of the many things I can’t wrap my head around is how eager Trump apologists are to be painted as lacking self-determination and not feeling insulted. But I also think that this gives us a course of action. We have to reframe and demand others reframe the discourse allowing that other people make choices! Put a spotlight on the choices Trump cabinet members make and the obvious and direct consequences they have. Insist that what rural Americans voters say is actually what they think and judge their character accordingly. Put conspiracists on trial and make them defend and explain the holes in their stories rather that letting scientists defend their expertise. Don’t explain yourself; demand explanations from everyone else.

We will never have all the power, and we are not going to make it until we offload some of the agency.